30 July 2008

The Prince of Darkness still shits in his sleep

This blog has mostly steered clear of what's happening in Iraq, not because i don't care, or don't follow the madness that continues to consume Babylon. Au contraire, it is (in fact) the subject of most of the non-fiction tomes i'm able to get my hands on here; i find books are more penetrating and accessible, since they tend to try and offer something analytical about the bigger picture rather than magnify the horrific details of the day to day insanity. Also, to be honest, on some level i'm still in the same fetal weeping position into which i collapsed on the day the invasion began, way back when. (At the time, people said i was over-reacting; 6 years later, i have to admit that what's happened has surpassed even my most morose expectations.) It's hard to know where to start discussing Iraq now, since everything i find myself wanting to say is either riddled with fungal emotion or seems to require a hefty amount of 'background' - folks like Dahr Jamail do that for a living minus the despair, and do a much better job of it than i'll ever be able to.

However, i really can't let the revelation of Richard Perle's dealings in Iraqi oil go unremarked. The Prince of Darkness rises from the cubicle of his office over at American Enterprise Institute or wherever the hell he's been ensconced since the Pentagon revoked his parking space, and aims to make a pretty penny on oil concessions in Kurdistan. That's just so rich, eh? Given Perle's ties to Israel and Israel's ties to the Kurds, on top of US demands that American oil companies get to control the rejuvenation of broken down Iraq's oil industry, i suppose we can hardly be surprised to see him capitalizing on his own debacle. Still, i have to register my utter DISGUST at his totally SHAMELESS PROFITEERING; if there were any justice in this world, he'd be sharing a cell with Mr. Karadzic discussing ways to faith heal his evil little soul (hahaha).

This story was broken yesterday by the Washington Post, but isn't fully accessible there without a subscription. A synopsis here says that Perle is part of a consortium led by Turkish AK Group International, which puts an even more demented spin on the whole situation. Why the Kurds are allowing a Turkish company to come in is beyond my comprehension, but that's the Prince of Darkness for you: no offense exists which cannot be mitigated by fiscal 'diplomacy' or some such Mephistophelan backdrop. Mr. Perle is among that rare breed of en flagrant ideologue who can hypnotize people into believing evil is evolutionary, insurgent wars are missions accomplished and girls blowing themselves up in marketplaces indicates the time is right for foreign investment. Irbil or bust: don't you really really really want to see him go there and dare to walk down the street???

The Price of Mud

Somebody please tell me this isn't really happening, because i don't know how much more guilt i can Zen into oblivion every time i consume a piece of fresh fruit. Haitians are now eating mud cakes as a dietary staple. ("Bad Haitians! How dare you make me feel wretched for living in a land of affordable produce plenty!") Guardian reporter Rory Carroll uses the term misery index when discussing the state of impoverishment in Haiti, a nice economist-friendly indicator to tell us where on the scale of getting fucked by global capitalism a population finds itself. i'd like to think this is his own phrase, yet i fear that it's probably taken from some World Bank report used to justify the continuing strangulation of a functioning society in Haiti and who knows where else: we're past the First World -Fourth World framework now, it's all misery without much company. Does one hope to move up or down the misery index? i've been thinking about this all morning and still can't be sure.

Adding to the insanity of this situation, Carroll writes:
Trucked in from a clay-rich area outside the capital, Port-au-Prince, the mud is costlier but cakes still sell for 1.3p each, about the only item immune from inflation. "We need to raise our prices but it's their last resort and people won't tolerate it," lamented Baptiste, the Cité Soleil baker.
Yes, you read that correctly, mud bakers want to raise their prices... i suppose to cover the ever-rising fuel costs related to trucking the clay into the city. This so sickening and disheartening, i am virtually stupified, speechless. Time to take out our pencil-margined copies of Fanon once again and consider the circular nature of oppression and despair. If i weren't so busy this week, i'd track down the 1970's film Burn! with Marlon Brando, just for a little shot of dominant paradigm subversion - but without the popcorn, that would be too cynical under the circumstances.

29 July 2008

Bomb in Budapest

Unlike those going off in Gujarat, Baghdad and Istanbul, the 4 tonne bomb found near the Danube this morning was dropped on the city in WWII and just never exploded. The police had to clear a 1 km radius - 15.000 residents - before the defuse or detonate squad could come in and deal with it. In the past month, two Hungarian bomb squad personnel have died in Afghanistan, so the risk of this one going off was apparently taken quite seriously. News reports now say the "great bomb wasn't dangerous" and tomorrow the excavators can go back to digging up more acreage for more office buildings... more details here and here if you read hungarian.

Lights out in morning rush

So i don´t feel like a total slacker even though there isn´t much time right now to write - and what i´d really like to be writing about this morning is this article about Palestinians torturing each other - thought i´d at least turn people on to Le Clan du Néon. Cute young miscreants, sure to inspire.

24 July 2008

A quick shout out to friends and comrades in Baltimore, who are now in the midst of an unraveling police surveillance scandal. Though never integrated into a terrorist investigation of any merit, anti-war and anti-death penalty groups were nonetheless being illegally 'monitored' (like a heartbeat?) by Maryland State Police. Here's a report from the Sun on pressure to hold state hearings on the matter. It will be interesting to see the type of information they were collecting, and whether these clever little insect spies were employed in gathering it.

Have a look at what the lurked upon are up to: National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance, Baltimore Coalition Against the Death Penalty, Committee to Save Vernon Evans.

22 July 2008

Foray into Tibetan history

Just finished reading an article on Tibetan military history by the ever-cynical though often insightful (in spite of his best intentions, apparently) Gary Brecher, who writes a column called The War Nerd for The Exile. Thought i'd pass it on in case anyone reading this is interested in the topic. Here's an excerpt on Britain's invasion of Tibet in the early 20th century:
Younghusband marched into Tibet in December 1903 with a force of Sikhs and Gurkhas—pretty scary mix, like rottweiler plus pit bull. And the Gurkhas were definitely the pit bulls in that pair. Sikhs are very tough but not blood-crazy. The Gurkhas were not only devoted lovers of knife-work, especially on POWs, but ancient enemies of the Tibetans. It didn’t take much to push them to a massacre. The Tibetans knew the British were dangerous and tried not to resist at all. But as the British force pushed farther and farther into Tibet, the local commanders decided to resist. That was a mistake. This wasn’t Tony Blair’s cool Britannia they were dealing with.
His comparison with the Chinese invasion, put in the historical contest of early Tibetan challenges to Chinese hegemony (going back to the first millenium AD), offers up some food for thought and basically lays to rest the premise that Tibet has, historically, been part of China and thus the current occupation by the Chinese govt/PLA just sets things right again at the higher elevations of the Asian continuum. Even if Brecher's account is full of falsehoods (which it may well be; i am - admittedly - no expert on this subject and am unlikely to acquire any expertise on it in either the near or distance future), i do not believe that rectifying the injustices of present day foreign occupations can be managed through a deep historical lens. In terms of finding a path to justice and reconciliation in Tibet in the 21st century, the present is the best we have to work with - and what's fair for the future. When native people talk about thinking of the seventh generation, they are referring to those yet to be born, not those who have already passed into the annals of history and the shifting sands of their bindings.

Criminals & Collaborators: Random thoughts on Karadzic’s capture

It was one of those synchronistic mornings: i put on Radiolina, sat down for the morning news scan and, lo and behold, Radovan Karadzic has been arrested. As reactions from various European entities slowly began to accumulate and the details of his arrest and litanies of his crimes started popping up on all international news sites, i’ve got Manu Chao filling the air space with POLITIK KILLS and i’m just thinking how true that is, no matter which angle of time one chooses to consider things from.

Various EU personages – notably all from the West of Europe – were lauding the Serbian government for catching this guy not merely because of his crimes, which are well-known and well-documented, but because of the commitment demonstrated in meeting a condition set by the EU for Serbia to move towards accession into their fracturing ranks. The same countries that basically let Karadzic carry on with his siege of Sarajevo for years and vacated Sebrenica just in time to miss the massacre, are now patting President Tadic on the back, saying ‘job well done’ by which i suppose they mean ‘thanks for catching a man who made our own negligence more blatant than we’re ever going to fully admit.’ Call me cynical, but everything i’ve ever read about what was happening under Karadzic’s vicious watch makes it abundantly clear that these events were happening on the EU/NATO’s watch, as well. If inaction is a form of action, then letting a war criminal execute his plans has got to qualify on some level as also being a criminal act. Need i add that some of these same individuals – Merkel, Sarkozy, Brown – are still digesting the 18 course meals they enjoyed alongside George Bush in Japan? Excuse me while i go ask my friends from Fallujah whether they agree that the worst of the world’s war criminals is finally behind bars.

However, far be it for me to rain on the parties underway in Sarajevo and elsewhere, since there is definitely cause for celebration. Aleksander Hemon wrote an excellent piece for Balkan Insight about the capture and had this to say about Karadzic:

He fully existed only when organising the genocide, he was invisible and irrelevant before it, and has been invisible ever since. Karadzic’s star shone only against the dark skies of a vast crime. This is why Karadzic is still popular among the Serbs in the Republika Srpska and Serbia proper: like a mythological being, he came out of nowhere to do what needed to be done—wipe out the “Turks” and create an eternal, heavenly kingdom, completing the mythological job started hundreds of years ago in the Battle of Kosovo. He did not care what the world might say—for the world is but a minor distraction in the eternal Serbian struggle to survive and live as the celestial people; he was ever willing to sacrifice even his moral well being for the people.

That there are still people who would publicly support Karadzic boggles the mind a bit, but even the most misguided mythological quests take a long time to lose their appeal (again, i’d note here W’s self-perception of being a superhero tasked with catching Islamic ‘evildoers’). According to al-Jazeera, "Heavily armed Serbian security forces were deployed around the war-crimes court in Belgrade where Karadzic was taken and dozens of Karadzic supporters were reportedly seen gathering near the building chanting 'Karadzic Hero!' and 'Tadic Traitor!' Several were arrested after attacking reporters." Really, what is there to say about this except that these folks should hunker down for the long haul, because their hero is most definitely going to spend the rest of his life behind bars. Innocent until proven guilty? Hey, at least he's getting a trial, which is more than one can say for the 10,000 Palestinians being held in Israeli jails.

In the film 9'11"01, a c ollection of 11 meditations on 9/11- all 11 minutes long – the contribution from Danis Tanovic of Bosnia-Herzegovina has always stuck in my mind as a very realistic look at where we are in the history of human affairs… or, perhaps, where we’ve always been? Tanovic’s piece shows the women of Sebrenica holding their daily march asking for justice; at a minimum, asking for answers. There are just a handful of onlookers, it seems little more than an meditative act. After watching them parade in funereal fashion with their signs and despairing lamentations, we see some of them in a little restaurant watching the news reports of the WTC attacks - in the most subdued way, as if they were seeing a car accident. Although the film concludes with these women standing again in the town square to express their sympathy for the newest victims of unbridled violence, the message seems pretty clear: ‘Hello? America? We are all suffering here. This is not a novel situation, it is simply more of the same.’

For these women - like so many others in the world where terrible atrocities continue to unfold, e.g. Burma - whatever happens to Karadzic is only going to put a dent in their grief. This is not to say that he shouldn’t be brought in shackles to The Hague, that the thousands of people who’ve survived his attempted genocide should be deprived of watching his demise in the official historical records. Personally, i would even suggest that before they lock him up for good and throw away the key, he should be made to run a gauntlet in which every survivor, or surviving family member, has the opportunity to spit on him and scream whatever they like in his face. Let’s just remember that war crimes trials are political trials, in which those most victimized are never those who hold the most power. Yes, there are more of these criminals from the Bosnian war still to be tracked down, and i do sincerely hope they are tracked down; it’s never too late to punish an evildoer - that includes Mssrs. Cheney, Bush, Rumsfield and Wolfowitz. i suppose what i’m trying to say here is that as always, we must remain ever vigilant and remember that those who may be the most vocal admirers of the criminal court’s actions now may also be those most fearful of having their own crimes likewise turn up in the dock.

21 July 2008

More disillusionment. (Sorry, it's not the best way to start the week, i realize that.) The music festival scene in the UK is being consumed by a Beverly Hills company whose board members are also running Clear Channel. Deep-pocketed W associates, one of the more offensive pro censorship, corporate media godzillas. That the founder of Glastonbury "doesn't have a problem with the Bush thing" is the height of cynicism, given the politics of so many of the performers there and probably most of the people who attend. i guess all the fuss about whether Jay Z belonged on the Glasto stage was an easy way to steer clear of this issue... as long as everyone had a good time, who cares where the profit is going????

Musical Interlude from Malawi

Some hip hop from the Real Elements

17 July 2008

Alternative Tides

"Not only will atomic power be released, but someday we will harness the rise and fall of the tides and imprison the rays of the sun. Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931)

Thomas Edison was a man truly ahead of his times, an absolute visionary; like Donald Rumsfield, only different. (Must i provide a reference for that? if you need one, then probably you’re better off reading this instead.) My own brain apparatus being a fine example of low functionality – especially by comparison - i marvel considerably more than Edison ever would at what’s happening in the world of renewable energy technologies. Thus, on the heels of my little foray into algal fuels, news about the first tidal power station feeding into the UK’s electricity grid naturally caught my attention and fired up the old Amaze-O-Meter again.

Located off the coast of Northern Ireland, this single underwater turbine will be generating 1.2MW of power by the time it reaches full capacity in a few months, which translates into enough electricity for approximately 80 households (depending on the number of appliances and energy-efficient measures employed). The technology employs the same principles as those found in wind power and achieves the same results, using the currents of both neap and ebb tides in the same way that wind turbines use air flow. Marine Current Turbines, which designed the SeaGen device, offers this short animated look at the technology. As noted on their site, one of its important features is that the whole apparatus can be raised above the surface for maintenance, eliminating the substantial expenses involved in underwater repairs, etc.

Apparently this is just the beginning of a major push to bring the contribution of tidal power up to 20% in the UK, while Scotland projects supplying 25% of Europe’s total marine-based energy through a combination of wave and tidal power stations. Given that the Scots have already surpassed their 2010 goal of 18% renewable, it seems reasonable to place confidence in their projections as well as determination to meet them. The Orkney project will be the world’s largest marine energy undertaking to date, and is scheduled to begin installation of its complex array of wave and tidal energy devices this year at a cost of £13 million (compare this to $13 billion – £6.5 billion – for one nuclear plant). The Scots are collaborating on this project with Hammerfest Strøm of Norway, who, in 2003, were the first to connect a tidal power generator to the public grid network.

Elsewhere, turbines similar to SeaGen and designed by the Canadian company, Blue Energy, will be employed in that company’s joint project with the Philippine government:

The Dalupiri Ocean Power Plant will utilize 274 ocean-class Davis Turbines, each generating from 7MW to 14 MW. However, the $2.8 billion project is just the first phase of a much larger proposed Build Own Operate Transfer (BOOT) project to be transferred to the Philippines after 25 years. Used to generate large scale renewable energy, the San Bernardino passage could help the Philippines to become a net exporter of electrical power.

That, to me, is pretty amazing. South Korea is also catching this renewables wave in a joint venture between Lunar Energy, a British tidal power company, and Korean Midland Power Company. The Wando Hoenggan project will be the world’s largest tidal wave generation “plant” and is anticipated to supply electricity for about a quarter of a million households. The turbine design is completely different, the advantage apparently being that seabed ducts will not interfere with safe passage of ships at the surface

Photo from Times.UK

Looking for critiques of these systems, what i found were a range of position papers and articles decrying the environmental impacts of tidal barrages. These are essentially dam networks constructed in coastal areas that allowed the operators to surge water (and thus, create current) at will. Problems are then more or less the same as what we’ve seen in standard hydro dams: impacts on wildlife, marine creatures, local hydrology and so forth. This analysis of such a system in northern Canada looks at some of these issues, though largely in the context of public-private investment and not clearly concluding that the problems are insurmountable.

In the non-tidal wave marine energy sector, progress is also being made from both technological and application standpoints. Portugal has a small wave farm of 3 units generating a total of 2.5MW 5 km off the coast at Aguçadoura, with plans for expansion in the works. According to folks at the British-based renewable energy center, wave energy entrapment is currently less advanced than its tidal counterpart, but more diverse in approach; clearly an area of development with many groovy innovations yet to come.

In all likelihood, this blog will continue to betray my own ignorance about renewables as i continue to survey what’s happening in the alternative energy sector. As Santayana once noted, “The tide of evolution carries everything before it, thoughts no less than bodies, and persons no less than nations. Like anyone trying to escape those feelings of despair that wash over us when W justifies the destruction of Alaska for oil drilling or Sarkozy applauds Gulf emirs for signing on to nuclear power, i find that i can subvert my fatalism by reading about non-nonsense alternatives to the dominant paradigm. When it comes down to it, that’s pretty much the best that atheism has to offer. Not necessarily belief in science, but belief in the future - and free will to make the most of it.

15 July 2008

Not sure what to make of this item in the Prague Post about Russia reducing it's oil exports to the Czech Republic by 40% in the wake of the CZ government's anti-missile missile treaty with the US. If, in fact, Russia IS trying to punish the Czechs, well, who can blame them? At least they've done it without a slog of rhetoric decrying Prague as part of an Axis of Evil. The argument that Russia doesn't have the right to take punative measures falls a bit flat in the wake of US policy these past 8 years, wouldn't you say? And while i'd like to maintain that withholding resources as a form of coercive politics is unacceptable, that would be hypocritical given my avid support for sanctions against the Zimbabwean and Israeli governments.

More to come on this topic....

11 July 2008

Convergence of Conspicuity

Anyone who’s been following preparations for the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing may have come to a premature conclusion that it would have been better if the International Olympic Committee (IOC) had selected some other city for these games - and i don’t mean Shanghai. Just three months ago, following the Chinese government’s severe response to an uprising in Tibet, the games’ grand global unity vision seemed at the point of derailing from a potential boycott. Then an earthquake struck Sichuan, stretching thin the premise that this is the right time for China to be throwing the world’s premier sports extravaganza (out of respect for the ~80.000 dead). Environmental problems have been generating concerns about the efficacy of Beijing as host city, and censorship continues to be a sticking point for those who believe that countries in which media activists are thrown into prison should not be celebrated as beacons of fair play. As someone who is not very interested in the sports world but extremely concerned about the planet’s health, i would posit that the Beijing Games have served to generate an obviousness about the latter that probably could not have happened were the games to be held in any other country.

This week, the IOC released a statement expressing its satisfaction with how preparations have been proceeding, asserting that “these Games have set a gold standard for the future,” while also acknowledging that air quality remains a concern. An article in Le Monde this week quotes world champion of the 100 and 200 sprints, Tyson Gay, as saying that many people have been telling him to wear a mask, which he refuses to do. According to Le Monde, particulate matter concentration in Beijing’s air remains well above the WHO’s acceptable limit. Chinese authorities have told Beijing area residents that if possible, they should work at home, and official business hours will be reduced from 20 July onward. If the air quality does not improve, i think some of the events won't be allowed. High polluting vehicles have been banned from the city and industrial emitters are being shut down altogether for the duration. With car sales in China increasing at the rate of 15% (10 million cars sold this year), this problem clearly will NOT be drastically impacted by a mere month of controls on vehicular use. However, one has to hope that China’s budding environmental movement will take advantage of the attention air pollution in their country is receiving and use this olympic-sized window of opportunity to generate some deeper national thought about the consequences of having a billion cars on the roads.

The other significant environmental problem has been an algae bloom covering more than 12,900 square kilometers (5,000 square miles) of the Yellow Sea off the coast of Qingdao, where the Olympic sailing regatta is to be held. As of 30 June, 100.000 tons of algae had been removed, and the cleaning operation continues unabated. Outside of the official government line that the algae has drifted in from the deep sea, the scientific as well as lay consensus is that sewage and high phosphate-nitrate runoff from agriculture and industry are responsible for causing this freak phenomenon. (‘Freak’, in case you haven’t noticed, is now becoming the norm for describing a whole range of environmental events around the globe: typhoons, tornadoes, infestations, etc.) Here’s a short clip of the algae removal operation, just to be sure everyone reading this has an accurate visual of what we’re talking about here, in terms of scale.


In a time when millions of people are suffering from malnutrition and outright starvation, seeing all this rich green plant matter being carted away to probably be dried out then thrown on a fire (after the Olympic games, of course) i couldn’t help but think we’re seeing a lost opportunity here of some magnitude. It turns out i was right, but not in the area of food production, directly. Algae are extremely greasy, using the vernacular, and in fact are the source of many of the oil deposits on which our material existence has come to depend (yes, it’s fun to think we’re using decomposed dinosaurs to run our air conditioners, but percentage-wise, the dinos of the Jurassic can’t hold a candle to their microscopic counterparts). To read about the progress that’s already been made in developing algae-based biofuels is to hit one’s head against the wall listening to G8-types lament the rock vs. hard place decisions they’re being pushed to make with respect to grain-based fuel.

"Algae have long been known to produce lipids that can be used for biodiesel production," says Dheepak Ramduth, [a lead researcher affiliated with the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research in South Africa]. "With the current worldwide focus on cleaner fuels and environmental awareness, algal biodiesel is an attractive option, as the specific production of oil per unit biomass is extremely high in algae compared to most seed crops. Current biodiesel technologies utilise oil seed crops that are either food crops themselves or could potentially compete with food crops for limited arable land and hence threaten food security in the country," says Ramduth.

Somewhat predictably (since alternative fuels development is consistently stifled in the US), the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Colorado was working on algal energy development 25 years ago. Their final report on the potential of of algal biodiesel can be found here. Based on the research conducted, these folks reached the conclusion that, “… Algal biodiesel could easily supply several ‘quads’ of biodiesel – substantially more than existing oil seed crops could provide. Microalgae systems use far less water than traditional oil seed crops. Land is hardly a limitation. Two hundred thousand hectares (less than 0.1% of climatically suitable land areas in the US) could produce one quad of fuel.” [italics mine]

Quite a few countries and small firms have been pursuing this technology, with a company in New Zealand announcing in 2006 they’d produced their first sample of algal biodiesel from a sewage plant. In additional to alternative vehicular fuel, scientists have also been working on photobioreactors which can be used – get this – to scrub pollutants out of coal and other industrial plants, the “waste” product - pure algae with high carbon content - then sent on to become FUEL or food. Check out this tour that Alan Alda took of MITs unit, which certainly spun my head around - very impressive.

Let’s imagine that China installed these reactors at just 10% of their coal-fired power plants. It seems the impact on air quality would become significant in a rather short period of time. Herein lies our convergence of conspicuity. Technologies exist for us to manage at least some our technological needs or expectations in a way that uses harmless natural processes, i.e. PHOTOSYNTHESIS. These solutions are there, right in front of us: solutions for fuel, solutions for food (not referring to algae here, but the food crops we already grow that are being used to power cars instead of feed humans), even solutions for capitalist stalwarts who’ve got money to invest but refuse to do so because the current oil=profit structure is too deeply imbued in their greedy little subconsciouses.

Can it possibly be made any more obvious? 100.000 tons is a whole lot of cost-free fuel doing a whole lot of scrubbing. Olympic athletes running the track in breathing masks – unquestionably the most fit of all human specimens - are a sure sign that most mammals cannot continue to live a healthy basic existence in today’s as well as tomorrow’s urban context (fanning out to rural, as well). Industrial leaders wringing their hands over food shortages caused by seed crop diversion to fuel (“Oh George! Oh Gordon! They’re not going to take away our golf courses to grow potatoes, are they?”) – please, spare us the ethical horror of repeating that scene yet again, and of seeing China excluded from the whole conversation. Having the spotlight shine on them this year, amid these myriad crises, the Chinese Olympiad has also served as an opportunity to concentrate our awareness of the urgency – and the possibilities – we face in dealing with our planetary catastrophes. When that gun goes off, Olympic Games runners know they better get moving if they want to carry a medal home at the end of the day. In the race for human survival, what will motivate a critical mass? Not another military invasion of someone else’s oil fields, i hope, nor a repeat of the Chernobyl disaster. Isn't it enough to know that we beat Chevron's odds? Personally, i'm fine with China being the hub of us leading ourselves out of Catastrophe Planet.... though they may well need a small revolution first, which makes them no different from the rest of the world, as much as some might like to believe otherwise.

09 July 2008

Rock & Roll junkies alert! The museum at 'the place where it all went down' has finally opened. Another must see on my Return to American Fantasy tour.

08 July 2008

Eat the Rich

i don't normally cut and paste other people's writing here, but Patricks Wintour and Barkham, writing for the Guardian, have captured the gross hypocrisy of G8 elites' excessive gorging at their Pacific island party with just the perfect amount of sarcastic disdain... Are you not also disgusted that individuals like W Bush and Silvio Berlusconi are treated to this kind of publicly-funded splendor, when they do absolutely nothing to help the world's poor and subpoor? (Silvio should be thankful the Japanese don't force him to take the trash this "meeting" is surely generating back to Italy for disposal; where would he dump it, Naples?) Expanding on the point i tried to make yesterday morning, if these people were really serious about implementing solutions to the growing list of really, really serious problems plaguing our planet and societies, i might not be so outraged by their opulence. However, these meetings do not produce results - other than an agreement by the elite to continue stuffing their own faces and bank accounts - so we are wasting a huge amount of resources on a bunch of people who deserve less than a McDonald's happy meal to keep their stomachs from growling.

As Vandana Shiva said, "Food rights of people have to be protected; the rights of the poor have to be protected. That is the only obligation governments have. Any democratic government that fails in that duty will only be part of the problem of creating food wars and food riots." Indeed. At this point, if any group of starving people opted to break into a presidential palace and stick their forks into one of these folks, i say let them have at it.

Here's part of the Guardian piece linked to above:
As the food crisis began to bite, the rumblings of discontent grew louder. Finally, after a day of discussing food shortages and soaring prices, the famished stomachs of the G8 leaders could bear it no longer.

The most powerful bellies in the world were last night compelled to stave off the great Hokkaido Hunger by fortifying themselves with an eight-course, 19-dish dinner prepared by 25 chefs. This multi-pronged attack was launched after earlier emergency lunch measures - four courses washed down with Château-Grillet 2005 - had failed to quell appetites enlarged by agonising over feeding the world's poor.....

After discussing famine in Africa, the peckish politicians and five spouses took on four bite-sized amuse-bouche to tickle their palates. The price of staple foods may be soaring, but thankfully caviar and sea urchin are within the purchasing power of leaders and their taxpayers - the amuse-bouche featured corn stuffed with caviar, smoked salmon and sea urchin, hot onion tart and winter lily bulb.

Guests at the summit, which is costing £238m, were then able to pick items from a tray modelled on a fan and decorated with bamboo grasses, including diced fatty tuna fish, avocado and jellied soy sauce, and pickled conger eel with soy sauce.

Hairy crab Kegani bisque-style soup was another treat in a meal prepared by the Michelin-starred chef Katsuhiro Nakamura, the grand chef at Hotel Metropolitan Edmont in Tokyo, alongside salt-grilled bighand thornyhead (a small, red Pacific fish) with a vinegary water pepper sauce.

They have told their people to tighten their belts for lean times ahead, but you feared for presidential and prime ministerial girdles after the chance to tuck into further dishes including milk-fed lamb, roasted lamb with cepes, and black truffle with emulsion sauce. Finally there was a "fantasy" dessert, a special cheese selection accompanied by lavender honey and caramelised nuts, while coffee came with candied fruits and vegetables.

Leaders cleverly skated around global water shortages by choosing from five different wines and liqueurs.

Earlier, the heads of state had restricted themselves to a light lunch of asparagus and truffle soup, crab and supreme of chicken served with nuts and beetroot foam, followed by a cheese selection, peach compote, milk ice-cream and coffee with petits fours.

Fresh from instructing his population to waste less food, it can only be hoped that Gordon Brown polished off every single morsel on his plate.

07 July 2008

Hunkered Down in Hokkaido

The G8 and some of their special friends, i.e. not China not India of course Israel, are meeting this week in northern Japan and once again, security operations are massive. According to The Independent, "Japan's last G8 conference in 2000 cost its taxpayers $750m and the final price tag for Hokkaido is likely to be not far off that figure." Naturally, a large portion of this bill goes to police, surveillance operations, etc. Thus has it ever been. When APEC met in Sydney, Australia last year, it was also the biggest security operation ever seen in that country. If the preparatory meeting last month in Osaka of G8 finance ministers is any indication of how serious the Japanese government is about keeping heads of state safe from harassment (if not harm), then we can expect some repercussions for protesters who do not show adequate respect for the state's security program.

Without China and India participating, the premise that this summit will arrive at doable and sufficient reductions in global CO2 emissions is basically laughable. The Europeans will again find themselves dealing with a US president promoting faith-based reduction regimes, i.e. whatever the corporate emitters [his base] say they are willing to accept and even then, in a way that will somehow enhance their profits [their faith]. In terms of the problems in Africa - Zimbabwe, Somalia, Somalian pirates (!), Darfur-Chad - i believe we can expect more hollow pronouncements and no substantive acts. However, it's a great accolade to the power of the G8 rulers that most of Hokkaido Island has been transformed to isolate and protect these people, and maybe some protesters will have to be deported but that's the price of security - democracy? - while the international media again tells us about the 9 course meals and who gave whom a comforting back rub. There is something incredibly flawed with this model of global governance in the 21st century, and the way these meetings continue to be used as excuses for turning the planet into a totalitarian security zone.

03 July 2008

Does John McCain really have a private jet with Straight Talk Express stenciled on it? That is just soooo John Wayne of him. The in-flight DVDs have got to include all of Reagan's films, along with Cindy McCain's fave, Basic Instinct.... From what i've seen of Col. McC's speeches, even he seems to recognize that he is NOT what's happenin' in this election. i've actually just checked out his website, and the main page graphic asks people to send in their opinion on OBAMA'S record. This certainly tells us a lot about the state of affairs in the Republican Party, using hate for the enemy as their great rallying point in a "we love america" platform. Then i opened the multimedia page and here's the title of the current autorun video: Barack Obama is Dr. No. i kid you not. Check it out. The whole ad is Obama flashing through James Bond backgrounds with slogans such as "NO to Nuclear Energy" popping up in parallel motion. Wonderfully dramatic, a great little fist bump for Barack, who is sure to create a strong, serious impression. It definitely presents him as consistent and steadfast. The colonel's level of discourse is so similar to W's - patronizing to the core - it's hard to believe anyone could take his candidacy seriously and i think this particular attack ad basically proves no one does. Little of substance, a view of the world that's somehow fantastical, completely out of touch with the rest of our realities. Another website feature is the game Pork Invaders, which you can play "to help John McCain in his fight against wasteful government spending." i'm not making that up. My final stop had to be the Eco-Store, perusing the golfing shirts. Here is what makes these PR items eco: little hand-embroidered recycling logos on them, right above the C in the candidate's name. That's pathetic. Straight Talk??? Only zombies would buy these things, so i guess that's who he's talking to.
Not knowing what else i can do to ameliorate the horror still unfolding in Zimbabwe, i'm continuing to remind myself of it here. This interview with one of Mugabe/Zanu's newly 'recruited' foot soldiers opens another window into the surrealism of it all (if you come across a copy of The Crystal World by J. G. Ballard, now might be a good time to read it). The whole country has been given over to the president's war of genocide against his own country's population. i found it truly incomprehensible that an old man would be choosing this legacy - has anyone checked recently to see if Mugabe's been channeling Mabuto Sese Seko in his dreams? All respect due to Tsavangiri for rejecting the power sharing proposal of the African Union. A unity government under these circumstances? They sure pulled that idea out of their asses...

02 July 2008

The Netherlands finally complies with EU tobacco control lows and bans cigarette smoking in restaurants and bars, including those singularly groovy coffeeshops so close to our hippie hearts. Now all joints have to be 100% pure cannabis, though herbal substitutes for tobacco might do the trick..... mugwort, anyone? i'm sure the Dutch will figure something out to prevent people from collapsing after they've basically mainlined some of the higher quality fare... is there another group of people in Europe who work better collectively to solve social problems?

Photo by Martha Sullivan@2007

Subjectivity vs.Truth in Advertising

The heading for this entry is a bit of a conundrum, since advertising by nature is programmed to be subjective, as well as elicit subjectivity in those who see it. "Truth in Advertising" is a fallacious concept: if it tells you to spend money, it's capitalist propaganda. Today i came across this ad to promote tourism in Israel and for some reason, i just couldn't let it go.
Unfortunately, i don't remember exactly where i saw it (some syndicated news site, perhaps AP?) but website ads change all the time anyway... so reposted the original here.... along with my own version.






















Elsewhere in the Arab state occupiers' advertising world, i came across a February '08 issue of Fortune and on the inside cover, a sky blue page with the following text: The world is grouwing by more than 70 million people a year. So is that a problem, or a solution? On the following page, one of Chevron's wordy letters about their profound faith in human ingenuity, full of assurances that a solution to the energy problem lies within the collective "us". Really you've got to give them kudos for having the audacity - after that dreadful People Do campaign - to keep printing this kind of absurdly meaningless drivel under their own logo.... isn't that what the American Petroleum Institute is for?

One of the premises here appears to be that eventually some critical mass of babies will grow up to form a cabal of technopetrowizards and solve all our energy problems. 'So, folks, listen up. If you haven't got the cash to fill up your hummer and take the family to Kandahar for the weekend, stay home and procreate instead!' Indeed, the petrol crisis is Nature's way of telling us we need to breed more geniuses. That Chevron would be making this argument strikes me as a bit bizarre, though in some respects it makes perfect sense. The more territory they violently occupy to control the world's major oil fields, the more cannon fodder they'll need to make it look like there's a war for civilization going on, rather than an endless series of banal invasions born out of sheer, unrepentant greed. If these huge petroleum conglomerates want us to give them full control over the future of our energy resources, they'd best stop talking to us like 5 year olds and say something real; Dumbledore is not going to appear in a gum wrapper and subvert our collective catastrophe. Yet on that note, one can't help but appreciate Chevron's closing statement, "The problem becomes the solution." Petrol-based economies going over the cliff sure seems like a reasonable way out of this mess to me.